The present invention relates to a bill handling apparatus for feeding a bill inserted from a bill insertion slot, while reading the fed bill to identify the validity.
Generally, a bill handling apparatus identifies the validity of a bill inserted from a bill insertion slot by a user, and is incorporated into service apparatuses that provides various kinds of products and service corresponding to the bill value judged as being valid, such as, for example, a game media lending machine installed in a game hole, or an automatic dispenser, ticket-vending machine and the like installed in public areas.
The bill handling apparatus is usually provided with operation devices such as a bill feeding mechanism that feeds a bill inserted into a bill insertion slot, bill reading means for executing readout of the fed bill, bill identifying means for identifying the validity (also referred to as authentication judgment) from the read bill information and the like, and control means for driving and controlling the operation devices.
In the above-mentioned bill handling apparatus, it is possible to perform high-speed processing as the entire apparatus by controlling the feeding speed of the bill to be fast, while improving the bill identification accuracy by controlling the bill processing speed to be low. For example, disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3580468 is a bill handling apparatus enabling optimal bill separation and stack control corresponding to the feeding speed to be able to vary the feeding speed of a bill corresponding to transaction. The bill handling apparatus is configured to feed a bill at a low speed again to re-identify when rejection occurs when the bill is fed at a high speed.
However, the bill handling apparatuses are usually used in various forms and environments, and when a problem occurs such as deterioration of identification accuracy and the like and maintenance is required, under circumstances where the apparatus is installed at a location some distance, a number of apparatuses are installed and the like, such a case arises that a clerk or staff is not able to support promptly. In the above-mentioned conventional bill handling apparatus, when the bill identification accuracy deteriorates, since a bill is always fed at a high speed in initial identification, a series of processing is executed of high-speed identification processing, reject processing, and low-speed identification processing, and a problem arises that the bill identification time is long.
Accordingly, a bill handling apparatus is required that enables the bill identification accuracy to be improved with easy procedures even when the bill identification accuracy deteriorates.